The Latest

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Two years after its last premiere, Adult Swim cartoon Rick and Morty (1.48) returned with a breakout performance on Sunday, exploding to 44% above its 2015 premiere and 32% above its series high (which was a 1.12 in the second episode of last season). 1.48 is great, but like all things Adult Swim, it is far more impressive in the even younger adult demos; it averaged a 1.94 in A18-34, which is well within megahit territory by broadcast standards.

In week three, Game of Thrones (4.30) dropped by three hundredths and remained very close to its post-premiere trajectory from last season; it's now gone +18% / +18% / +16% year-to-year in its three episodes.

In this particular week, you could at least make the argument HBO had even better news from the lead-out comedies. Ballers (1.26) was actually up a few hundredths from its week-ago premiere, and the 10:30 comedy Insecure (0.66) grew by more than a tenth week-to-week. Ballers tied Silicon Valley's raw series high, and Insecure had a higher raw number than Veep has done in its last four seasons at 10:30 (most of which had the indirect Thrones lead-in).

Elsewhere on Sunday, Teen Wolf (0.26) returned to MTV for the back half of its final season. While it remains a shadow of what it was even a season ago, this point did stack up pretty well against the first half of the season (which only got as high as 0.26 one time, and averaged a 0.22). And TNT had a particularly promising outing from drama newbie Claws (0.56), surging to nearly a tenth above its previous series high.

FULL TABLE:

Show

Episode

Season

Name

Net

Ep

A18-49

Last

Seas

Avg

y2y

Proj

ProjPlus

Skew

Male

Game of Thrones

HBO

3

4.30

-1%

7

4.45

+18%

4.53

369

59%

56%

Rick and Morty

ADUL

1

1.48

3

1.48

+44%

1.44

117

66%

67%

Ballers

HBO

2

1.26

+3%

3

1.24

+76%

1.00

82

62%

59%

Power

STAR

6

0.78

-5%

4

0.75

-16%

0.75

61

56%

45%

The Haves and the Have Nots

OWN

16

0.60

-9%

4

0.64

-18%

0.68

55

33%

34%

Insecure

HBO

2

0.66

+20%

2

0.60

+365%

0.73

60

64%

53%

American Dad!

TBS

16

0.46

-2%

13

0.53

-3%

0.52

43

68%

59%

Queen Sugar

OWN

7

0.42

-11%

2

0.48

-7%

0.47

38

37%

29%

Snowfall

FX

4

0.42

-9%

1

0.48

0.42

35

54%

61%

Claws

TNT

8

0.56

+24%

1

0.45

0.47

38

46%

38%

Preacher

AMC

7

0.47

+7%

2

0.44

-31%

0.44

36

44%

59%

Daytime Divas

VH1

10

0.38

-19%

1

0.43

0.43

35

55%

23%

Being Mary Jane

BET

12

0.34

+26%

4

0.40

-46%

0.40

32

54%

23%

Wrecked

TBS

6

0.34

-8%

2

0.39

-20%

0.36

30

50%

52%

Queen of the South

USA

8

0.41

+8%

2

0.38

-5%

0.37

30

43%

38%

The Strain

FX

3

0.33

+10%

4

0.38

-24%

0.32

26

45%

60%

Animal Kingdom

TNT

8

0.36

-10%

2

0.37

-12%

0.38

31

41%

49%

Shooter

USA

2

0.32

-22%

2

0.36

-18%

0.39

32

35%

55%

Suits

USA

3

0.34

-6%

7

0.35

-32%

0.33

27

32%

47%

People of Earth

TBS

2

0.33

+10%

2

0.32

+2%

0.33

27

58%

56%

The Fosters

FREE

3

0.29

-3%

5

0.31

-23%

0.29

24

50%

29%

Shadowhunters

FREE

18

0.24

0%

2

0.26

-38%

0.26

21

50%

34%

Teen Wolf

MTV

11

0.26

+24%

7

0.23

-45%

0.23

18

60%

45%

Odd Mom Out

BRAV

3

0.21

0%

3

0.21

+27%

0.25

21

45%

25%

Nashville

CMT

21

0.16

0%

5

0.20

-79%

0.20

16

30%

37%

Killjoys

SYFY

5

0.22

+29%

3

0.17

-7%

0.17

14

36%

56%

Blood Drive

SYFY

7

0.11

-15%

1

0.15

0.14

11

37%

64%

Dark Matter

SYFY

8

0.17

+55%

3

0.15

-9%

0.15

12

32%

58%

The Bold Type

FREE

4

0.16

+23%

1

0.15

0.15

12

58%

Stitchers

FREE

8

0.13

+8%

3

0.13

-13%

0.13

11

44%

Turn

AMC

8

0.13

+8%

4

0.12

-8%

0.13

11

25%

47%

Will

TNT

5

0.10

0%

1

0.12

0.11

9

34%

Wynonna Earp

SYFY

8

0.13

+30%

2

0.12

-17%

0.11

9

30%

48%

Twin Peaks

SHOW

10

0.06

-33%

1

0.10

0.08

7

43%

69%

Loaded

AMC

3

0.12

+50%

1

0.09

0.10

8

44%

Orphan Black

BBC-

7

0.10

+11%

5

0.08

-17%

0.08

7

37%

The Cablemetrics table can be sorted by clicking any of the categories at the top (and a second click will sort in the other direction.) After having sorted by a category, you can hold SHIFT and click another category to sort by the second category within the first.